Non-invasive measurement and reconstruction methods for high-speed integrated IC and package

Abstract

With the continuous effort to achieve both high speed and low power in high performance packages, it is becoming more and more difficult to meet the target specifications. While testing has become of utmost importance, it is not viable to have a direct access to the signal pins in a package on package (PoP) configuration due to the densely located array of solder balls. In this dissertation, we first propose reconstruction methods for simultaneous switching current and eye diagram, as well as the novel current probe and test interposer structures that adopt the proposed methods. The proposed reconstruction methods adopt transfer function and transfer impedance to reconstruct the target simultaneous switching current waveform and eye diagram. Further, the proposed structures are designed considering a number of signal and power integrity issues, such as intersymbol interference (ISI), jitter, impedance matching, crosstalk, and so forth, so as to minimize their influence on the intrinsic performance of the package. Through a series of simulations and measurements, we experimentally verified the proposed methods and structures and proved their effectiveness. The proposed reconstruction methods and structures are expected to be widely adopted for testing of high-performance packages with its high accuracy and practicality.